The ways people dream, build, and reimagine the world around them constantly fill me with awe. Innovation is where wonder lives.
Salting Grief and Grace
In both Japanese funerary rites and Afro-Caribbean spiritual practices, salt is a sacred purifier, used to ward off evil spirits and cleanse the lingering energy of death. Whether sprinkled outside the home after a funeral or offered at an ancestral altar, salt marks the boundary between the living and the dead. I grew up throwing salt over my shoulder, into fire, or into moving water, a ritual of release and banishment, echoing traditions that span oceans and generations.
Yellow Gyal Code Carrier: Work in Progress
I build with breath and braid, letting the silence between knots speak.
Illuminations and New Sight
Ever since I got my new reading glasses, I’ve been powering through my reading list with fresh eyes, literally and spiritually. This morning, I finished Illuminations by Mary Sharratt, a luminous novel about Saint Hildegard von Bingen, the 12th-century mystic, composer, healer, and visionary.
Her story is so inspiring. Hildegard’s fierce devotion to divine creativity, her bold voice in a patriarchal world, and her communion with the natural world, echo so much of what I’ve been reaching for in my own practice. Her visions, wild, vivid, unapologetically feminine, remind me that there is sacred power in speaking what only you can see.
Hildegard’s legacy is a radiant thread in the life I’m building now, of ritual, plant medicine, and ancestral memory. I didn’t expect a book to shift my inner tempo, but Illuminations has done just that. More soon. There’s work to do in the garden.
Theda
Twisted Witness: Work In Progress
So far, I’ve been working with recovered marine line, sea tumbled, woven and knotted with yarn and hand made cordage. Next, I move on too beading and button embellishment.
Each twist channels the raw tension of being dismissed,
of time stolen by those who don’t listen,
of vision ignored until echoed by another voice,
suddenly heard, suddenly valid,
but not mine.
This vessel holds that frustration.
It binds the silence I am forced to swallow
into something visible, undeniable,
a net of memory and resistance,
tangled, resilient, and true.
Code Carrier Vessel: Work In Progress
The beginning of this code carrier vessel holds both memory and magic. It is growing like a shell, spiraling inward and outward at once.
The Saman Tree Speaks
There’s a Saman Tree at Sky Garden Retreat that has been calling out quietly for years.
Its wide, sheltering canopy hums with memory. Its roots grip the land like knuckles holding on to something sacred. When the wind moves through its branches, it feels like a whisper, like someone long gone is trying to tell me something important.
This tree is not just a tree. It is a witness. A keeper of stories. A sentinel for the land and the lives that have passed through it.
I’ve invited the team from the Black Heritage Tree Project to visit Sky Garden and meet the Saman Tree for themselves. They are here on St. Croix mapping and honoring the trees that have borne witness to Crucian history, especially the brutal and beautiful legacy of Black freedom, survival, and spirit.
There’s also an old gravity-fed well tucked into the ghut below, mostly hidden now by vines and time. But it’s there. Like the tree, it’s part of a story that refuses to be forgotten.
I don’t know everything this tree has seen, but I know how it makes me feel: grounded, protected, watched over. I know that when I stand beneath its limbs, I feel connected to something much older than myself, something enduring.
This visit isn’t about documentation alone. It’s about reverence. Listening. Remembering. And sharing space with something ancient that still lives and breathes beside us.
If you’ve ever loved a tree, you know what I mean.
Rootstick Tide Wands Currently In Flow
Under the luminous pull of the Strawberry Moon, I began crafting the Rootstick Tide Wands, objects shaped by intuition, ritual, and memory. Each wand started with driftwood and sea-worn scraps gathered from the land and shore: bones, feathers, quartz, crystals, discarded necklaces. I wrapped and adorned them with yarn, selenite, cowrie shells, buttons, and beads—allowing each element to speak its own truth.
This is more than assemblage; it is a quiet invocation. A binding of spirit and story. Rooted in diasporic folklore, these wands are made to ward off duppies, clear stagnant energy, and tether intention.
They are not decorative. They are ritual instruments, both ward and witness, born from loss, longing, and the fierce grace of viriditas, St. Hildegard’s divine greening force.
A channel. A gathering. A release.
Mid-Summer Update: Shows, Studio Time & Liminal Rites
This summer has been a gentle stillness—a season of rest, reflection, and quiet becoming.
I’m honored to have work currently on view in Fiberart International 2025, a juried biennial exhibition showcasing contemporary textile art from around the globe. If you’re in Pittsburgh, you can catch the show at Brew House Arts (711 S 21st St #210) through August 30, 2025. The depth and diversity of work in this show is incredible, it’s worth the visit.
Looking ahead, I’ll be showing work in Interpretations 2025 at the Visions Museum of Textile Art in San Diego. The exhibition opens October 17 and runs through January 10, 2026. I’ll be in town for the Festival Days, on the 17th and 18th. If you’re in Southern California, I’d love to connect while I’m there.
In the meantime, I’m taking the next three months to dive deeply into the development of Liminal Rites, a new immersive installation exploring the thresholds between this world and the spirit world. This body of work has been slowly gestating since the beginning of the year, guided by dreams, rituals, and research.
I’ve been gathering foraged materials, weaving textures of memory and transformation, and building what will become a ritual altar table layered with intention. Video, soundscapes, and scent will round out the sensory experience, designed not just to be seen, but felt.
This is sacred, slow work. A season of inward focus. I’m allowing the process to unfold in its own rhythm, trusting the liminal space between inspiration and manifestation.
Stay tuned. More to come soon.
Theda
Recharging with Rest and ExplorationRecharging in July
This July, I’ve given myself permission to pause.
Not a retreat, exactly, but a recalibration. I’ve been recharging through rest and meditation, giving my mind, body and spirit space to breathe. In the swirl of projects, it’s easy to slip into autopilot. But this month, I chose to move with intention.
Each morning begins with stillness. I open the Hallow App and let the rhythm of guided prayer set the tone. Then, I walk to the studio and press play on my new morning playlist, an alchemical blend of sound designed to unlock flow. You can listen along here: Sky Garden STX Morning.
Between weaving, knotting, writing, and Zooms, I wander the garden paths, letting the plants teach me how growth happens, slowly, silently, often beneath the surface. Stillness is part of the process. Stillness, I’m learning is not absence. It’s part of becoming.
I’ve also been deep in the writings and music of Saint Hildegard of Bingen, a 12th-century mystic, composer, and healer. She saw divinity threaded through every leaf and sound, and believed that body, mind, and soul must be nurtured in harmony. Her word viriditas, the greening force of vitality, has been echoing in my studio practice. It reminds me that rest isn’t a break from creativity; it’s fertile ground for it. Rest is a sacred act of preparation.
This season of slowing down is giving rise to new ideas, new rituals, new ways of listening, to my materials, to my ancestors, to the whisper of the quiet voice within.
Rest is not retreat. It’s remembering.
Theda
